Saturday, July 21, 2012

Vodacom Award for Digital Excellence

I was minding my own business, lamenting the fact that the blog doesn't get updated nearly enough and that there aren't enough hours in the day, et cetera, moan moan moan, woe is me. Then Vodacom Tanzania decided to include me in their inaugural intake of online Fellows. They just kinda emailed me out of the blue. Bam! Award! Fellowship! Want it?

Um. There are folks in the Tanzanian blogosphere who embrace the intersection of commerce and social media. I am not one of them. I was confused as to why an advertising-mad telecom would reach out to a feral and outspoken anti-capitalist like me. Calls were made.

Turns out, it's not the Devil trying to buy my soul after all. Well... not my whole soul, just a touch of it. All I have to do in exchange for all this 'love' is put up the Vodacom badge on my blog. For which I will be awarded cool gadgetry and a year of free internets (yay!), money (whatever. redirecting to charity/utility) and a wee bit of prestige (I'm a Capricorn). And you know what? they actually put thought into this. So yeah, I am doing it.

Life is too short to just accept prizes as if they were manna. This is a Fellowship, neh? I think they should demand far more of us than a simple photo opportunity*. So I bounced some ideas off the organizing team about things like actually setting us a goal, forcing us to work together for the greater good, perhaps even setting a precedent for their next intake. I suggested mining our experience and competencies for something constructive to the people of this here great land whose hard earned Shillings are keeping us healthy and wealthy. Giving back, in brief.

I am grateful for Vodacom's recognition of this blog. I share it with the crucial people - they know who they are - who got a lazy bourgeoise to actually do something, for once. I shall be putting up the badge. You may, indeed, call me a Vodabitch for the duration of the year. And I will take it. Because if I can help it, something good is going to come out of this. Something thoroughly unprofitable, thoughtful and hopefully engaging. Inshallah.

*these guys have the worst last-minute-dot.com planning ever. By consequence I will not be there to do the press conference, but a homeslice is kindly going to do the shake-and-grin for me in front of the cameras. So press people, get it right: I do exist, I can't be there, msilete uzushi.